Sunday, December 4, 2011

Today my boyfriend and I spent the afternoon making some homemade goodies for ourselves (and as testers for what will ultimately become Christmas gifts for our friends and family). I'll be including a few of the recipes as my weekly tips, so here's a sneak peek:

The first few projects we worked on were based on recipes I found in the latest Herb Quarterly. I've always been really picky about the products I use on my face (soap, toner, moisturizer) so I like testing out different natural varieties to find a perfect fit for my skin. So I was really excited to find recipes for an all-natural facial cleanser and moisturizer.

This almond-oil cleanser felt a bit greasy when I first used it and the oil itself didn't seem to completely rinse off, but once I dried my face, I found the remaining oil to be just right to keep my skin feeling moisturized and clean. I followed up with my regular alcohol-free witch hazel toner and then finished with my homemade moisturizer.

This moisturizer is luxuriously rich, yet feels extremely light when applied to the skin. I tried it about an hour ago and my face feels so soft it's wonderful!

The next Herb Quarterly recipe was for a tea tree counter scrub, which is basically just a mixture of baking soda and tea tree oil. I sprinkled a bit of the scrub on our kitchen counter and it did seem to deodorize the surface. I'm going to continue using this throughout the house and I'll let you guys know how it holds up!

Our last Herb Quarterly project is a moisturizing, calming balm. This balm uses a beeswax base and includes relaxing oils including lavender, bergamot, and clary sage (although we decided to use lavender and ylang-ylang because that's what we had on hand). We're still in the process of finishing the balm since we have to wait for the lavender buds to infuse into the base oil. It's not the finished product, but it sure looks pretty!

We also made some cocoa butter soap, topped with oatmeal for exfoliation and scented with my Witch's Brew fragrance (one of my boyfriend's favorites). This soap came out so nice, I'm really psyched to give these out as gifts!

And, finally, we made our own customized shampoo, scented with rosemary and juniper essential oils (my favorites). I'm really excited to try out the soap and shampoo later today, I'll let you guys know how I like them!

Completing these projects only took a few hours and we both had a lot of fun working and learning together. Plus, it's always so satisfying to use natural, healthy products that you've created yourself! If you're interested in making your own creations, I highly recommend you do it. See if a friend or family member wants to help--it's a lot of fun to work with someone else :)

12 comments:

Oooooh! Those look and sound Amazing! I completely forgot i was suppose to send you some recipes :( I'm a bad friend. I will get those to you as soon as Mark is done reformatting the computer I kept them on. Right now they are on a back up hard drive laying on the floor :(

After looking over a number of the blog articles on your website, I seriously appreciate your technique of writing a blog.I saved as a favorite it to my bookmark site list and will be checking back soon.Please check out my web site as well and tell me how you feel.

Hey just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your article seem to be running off the screen in Chrome. I'm not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with internet browser compatibility but I figured I'd post to let you know.The layout look great though! Hope you get the problem resolved soon.Kudos

Yesterday, while I was at work, my sister stole my iPad and tested to see if it can survive a 40 foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My iPad is now destroyed and she has 83 views. I know this is totally off topic but I had to share it with someone!

Its like you learn my thoughts! You appear to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I believe that you can do with a few p.c. to power the message home a little bit, but other than that,this is fantastic blog. A great read. I'll definitely be back.

About Me

By day, I’m an Editor at a small publishing company. By night (and weekends, lunch breaks, vacation days, and so on) I’m a good ol’ fashioned candle-maker. I originally decided to start this blog to share my crafting experiences with others and to get the word out about my company, Candles by Nature. While the primary focus of my entries will be on candle-making, I would like to think of this blog as a place where I can discuss *all* things candle-related—which ends up being almost anything, as I’ve found that so many aspects of my life have become intertwined with my candles.